Argh, bloodwood and my router aren't a good combo

[Gary Herrmann]

I'm making a box for my wife to put various odds and ends in on her makeup table. Bloodwood and yellowheart. Decided to dovetail the bloodwood sides, which we bought specially for this project on sale last year.

Never having worked bloodwood before, I was not happy at the tearout (especially on the board edges) I got using my Leigh jig and router.

I was using a 1/4" piece of ply in front of the bloodwood and had a backer board and still got tearout. I also followed the recomendations in the tips section of the Leigh manual. Argh.

I know it's got a really high specific gravity. Is the tearout normal? I'm not sure what I could have done to avoid the tearout.

Aggravated and having a beer...

[Robert Mahon]

I also use Bloodwood for splines, trim and joint keys. I found that if I route the wood in 1 direction, it "Frizzes". In the other direction; not so bad.
Therefore, I always run a piece through the router 1st, to see which direction is against the grain. Then I orient the Bloodwood in the piece I'm working on so it routes in the preferred direction.
Of couse this requires that you mark the wood and keep track of which way is which BEFORE gluing it in place.

When done properly, the edges of the Bloodwood appear to have a halo effect after finish sanding and application of BLO. Nice stuff, that.

"Here I am in the tree with the Witches. Which Witch is which?" ;)